It's my blog and I'll cry if I want to

Lucille pointed out a blog to me yesterday that many of you may already know about called "Inside a black apple". I read a post about the purpose of her blog which she wrote in response to some criticism she received from a commenter about how opinionated, snarky, and hoity toity she can be. I thought her post was a really sharp explanation of what blogs are really all about, which is that each of us creates our blog to be a place where we can come to be ourselves, to record our daily comings and goings, and to offer up our nonobjective view points. Blogs aren't really created to appease the general PC public. People create them, often, as a personal haven, a little world where we can post the pictures we want, share the details we feel like sharing, and swear if we want to.

The fact that blogs are public is only really a side note. A small perk, because putting our personal world out there for others to find us means that people who share our passions, who like the same things we do, or who want to see what we're up to can come and go as they like. People can be voyeurs if they choose, silently observing our sideshows, or they can become an actual part of its landscape. How brilliant is that? Why are new blogs being created every day? Because they're brilliant!

Eh, anyone who comes here knows that I like to run off at the mouth pretty much for hours on end. I used to do this to my friends all the time. Grab on to a collection of subjects that seem about as diverse as the religions in this country and weave them all together, excitedly dissecting our humanity. Maybe my friends like this about me, maybe they don't. But here on my blog, I can do what I want. I can write five hundred pages of total crapola. The beauty of it is that if you get tired of it, if you find my words offensive, or stupid: YOU CAN LEAVE WITHOUT HAVING TO HURT MY FEELINGS.

I can do the same to you.

Just about every week or so I write a post that once I've pressed the "publish" button makes me worry. I have opinions, and they are bound to occasionally be completely different than someone else's. Plus, I have no way of knowing who's reading this blog unless they happen to leave a comment. Which lots of people don't. I was thinking about this yesterday, obviously, because of bringing up religion. If there is any topic more hot than religion, (besides sex), I don't know it. All day I was thinking about who out there might be shocked into a coma at the comparison I threw out there between the Mormon and Islamic faiths. On the surface they seem quite similar to me, I want to explore that. So I throw it out there.

Then I get a comment from a Mormon who tells me I got everything all wrong about Mormons. And invites me to learn more which doesn't surprise me at all. What surprises me is that a Mormon is reading my blog in the first place. How did she find me? Are there Islamic people reading this blog too?

I was already thinking all these things when I read the post on "Inside a black apple". I think she really nailed the whole issue. No one should have to censor themselves on their own blog. Period end. Out there in the real world I expect myself to be respectful of others all the time, I try not to swear too much, I try to be polite, even to really rude people. Here on my blog is where I can let my hair down, say what I think, even if I turn out to be wrong. I can cry and whine if I want to, because this is my party here. I suppose I try, even here, not to be a pig headed mean-ass unthinkingly prejudiced jerk. But I refuse to shield people from my curiosity here at Dustpan Alley.

And that's my final stance.

I'll still write things that make me uncomfortable about once a week. But if I wasn't saying them here in my own little dark fairyland, I'd be blurting them out on the streets where no one can get away from me fast enough. Poor souls.

The same principle applies to comments. I don't mind that the Mormon put in her two cents. And I really super duper amazingly enjoyed the other comments from yesterday's post! (Very juicy I thought.) I enjoy thoughtful comments, I enjoy comments that challenge ideas I've put out there, and obviously I love it when people tell me I'm like the Michael Pollan of the retail world. (Well, no one's told me that, but some of you were thinking it, weren't you?)

As a little side note here, I'm actually super surprised I haven't attracted any real hate mail yet. There have been several posts on this blog of a highly questionable nature and I expected to get a whip lashing of objections from someone out there. I don't actually want to get any, I just sort of expected it because my favorite topics tend to be pretty inflammatory.

Well, I just want to say how much I appreciate that some people out there enjoy my blog enough to come back often, and I love hearing from you. I look forward to writing here every single day while drinking my cup of coffee; imagining all of you hunkered down with your coffee at your computers reading my posts and with fists in the air shouting "Dammit woman! Stop insulting my grandma! You're wrong, you're wrong....DUDE, you're so wrong about everything!"